International surveys of educational achievement are typically analysed in isolation from each other with no indication as to whether new results confirm or contradict those from earlier surveys. The paper pulls together results from four surveys to compare average levels of achievement, inequality of achievement, and the correlates of achievement (especially family background) among the six English-speaking OECD countries and between them and countries from Continental Europe. Our aim is to see whether a robust pattern emerges across the different sources: the Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS), the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA), the Programme of International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS).
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.